But we go right back to where we were before. I am, and most people are, well aware of this fact. Altering that is a matter of time and education. Repeating it over and over to the people not doing it doesn't help anything.

hahaha it's funny because you think they should sit at the back of the bus and shut up until the people with privilege deign to let them sit up front

This thread has already gone to some very imporant places. But, as is almost inevitable with these specific places, some people get lost in the eddies. Instead of continuing with the flow of conversation, they circle around and around unable to escape the notion that their privilege means it isn't about them.

Part of the privleged class? It doesn't matter that you're not offended. It doesn't matter that you don't see anything wrong. Opinions and arguments founded on your privilege are noise.

1. Game players acknowledge female gamers exist in enough numbers to be considered members of the fractured community and are not oddities 2. Game players acknowledge female gamers have an equal voice (you don't need to agree with what we say, just that we have a right to say it)3. Game players be able to discuss a topic about female gamers without dismissing their opinions or points of view without cause4. Hold gaming companies accountable for lack of female representation, how women are portrayed in their games, and marketing practices 5. Any male game players who say anything positive about female gamers should not be immediately dismissed as a "white knight"6. Acknowledge that not all female gaming conversations represent the entire community of female gamers. Just like not all male gamers are sexist assholes, not all female gamers represent the group in the most positive light7. Female gamers need to make their voice heard in positive ways, not just complaining. 8. Are you a female in gaming? Use the mic. Play. Kick ass. Be yourself.

For the Gaming Companies

1. Do better research into who is playing their games and why they play them2. Include women in some of their marketing as players and not as sex symbols 3. Take a hard look into hiring practices to ensure there is no gender bias4. Take a hard took into how women are treated in the workplace5. Proactively encourage women to join their companies at all levels by establishing a women friendly environment and publicizing it6. Take a hard look on how women are represented in their games and adjust as needed7. Have women speakers at gaming events that talk about real relevant topics8. Are you a female that works in the gaming industry? Be loud. Be pushy. It sucks for you but you are in a position to make a difference. I want to know who you are.

For Society

1. Get more girls into STEM2. Acknowledge that a lot of female empowerment is extremely new and will take time to totally change our perceptions as a culture 3. Acknowledge that language matters. A little thought into how you communicate goes a long way.4. Acknowledge that different cultures have different views of gender roles and may change at different paces and in different ways

Did I forget anything? Disagree? Is it totally insane to think that just making this list can make a tiny bit of difference?

I feel like these discussions tend to take a very narrow view of gaming. We get bogged down on the treatment a girl receives in online Halo or Call of Duty. But there are many, many more women playing casual games on Facebook and mobile -- and not really thinking of themselves as "gamers," though they surely are.

In some of those game communities, women are already the majority, and developers cater to them as such. I was involved in one such game for a while. You better believe we took women seriously, because women were providing the bulk of our revenue.

I don't know if there are industry events those developers present at. (Probably there are?) But I'd expect to see more women front and center in those presentations than in a Playstation event.

The Playstation being a more male-oriented device does not necessarily say much about gaming demographics as a whole. Consoles are losing ground in the industry, after all.

(Also, there's a subtle sexism in writing off some of those female-favored games as being "not really games.")

I think women in gaming is a hot topic much like women in tech, women in science, or more specifically (at least in my experience), women in programming. There's an attitude that you have to "earn" your right to be somewhere or do something. If you're a woman and you haven't played games since Ultima Online, you haven't "earned" the right to blah blah blah. If you're a woman and you haven't written Linux drivers and submitted patches upstream, you haven't "earned" the right to speak at a programming convention. So whenever you're viewed as an "other", whether it's a woman, or a minority, you have to double down your efforts to be accepted.

The problem isn't that there is a standard. It's that it's a double-standard. If, in fact, everyone is held to the same standard, then you shouldn't be given a position over someone else due to your race or gender. If there is a double-standard, then the best solution is to identify it and talk about it publicly.

Zanshin wrote:

So the question remains, should companies like Sony force the sex issue, and explicitly hire and publicly promote positive female employees?...

If there is legitimate evidence that some race/gender/etc is being discriminated against, then that issue needs to be addressed. However, the severity of the solution needs to fit the severity of the problem, and it needs to be done on a case-by-case basis. The call for reverse discrimination (affirmative action) is an extreme solution to what may not be an extreme problem, especially in regard to this whole Sony presentation.

So far, all we've heard about the supposed sexism in regard to the Sony presentation is a bunch of half-assed assumptions. First, we get the assumption that roughly the same number of women as compared to men are applying for a job at SCEA. Then, we get the assumption that out of those women actually hired at SCEA, an even ratio of the male and females employees actually want to work in upper management (as opposed to down in the trenches in marketing, programming, hardware design, etc). Next, we get the assumption that, out of those who actually work in management, an even ratio are even in the few choice positions which may be chosen to appear in said presentation. Finally, on top of all these remarkably unfounded assumptions, we get the assumption that sexism somewhere in the corporate structure of SCEA is to blame. Keep in mind that only a handful of Sony employees actually appeared in the presentation. Other presenters were from other game companies, which need to be dealt with separately.

As far as I'm concerned, you haven't made your case well enough for us to pursue reverse discrimination across the board. I'll give you that there is still sexism in our culture and society, and I fully support educational efforts and open discussion to improve things. However, we also have to be honest with ourselves and let the possible solutions be derived from hard evidence, rather than dogma and zeal.

Forced integration of public schools was an extreme solution in the 50s and 60s, but it was an appropriate solution because there was extreme racism in many areas of the US. However, I could not support such a solution in today's environment, or at least to the degree it was used back then. Does this mean that racism is 100% gone? Of course not. It simply means that the underlying problems are not nearly as severe as they were back then and, as such, the solution should not be as severe. The same approach should be applied to sexism.

Zanshin wrote:

To look at the long strategy, women are half the population, and by them not having opportunities to be in positions of power, you are reducing by 50%, our chances of having great games, awesome apps, or fantastic presidents of the United States.

And this is the problem of poor assumptions about skewed gender ratios that I've been talking about all along. Is it possible that skewed gender ratios are due to sexism somewhere in the system? Absolutely. As sexist gatekeepers are removed and societal attitudes are improved, we will see these ratios improve. However, we should not be surprised if they never reach 50/50 or anywhere near that ratio. You, and others in this thread, continually lead with the flawed assumption that men and women and exactly alike, both physically and mentally, and that no trends will develop along gender lines because no differences exist between the sexes. At the same time, you are proposing an extreme, unwarranted solution to this problem in the form of affirmative action.

So far, all we've heard about the supposed sexism in regard to the Sony presentation is a bunch of half-assed assumptions.

My take on all of this is the Sony presentation is merely a symptom of the problem, and focusing on just the presentation or Sony itself is avoiding the real issue of whether sexism is a problem in our society (and since it's Sony, Japanese society as well). I think it's pretty clear that sexism exists. What to do about is a much harder question. I certainly don't have the answer, but I think it's counterproductive to fight the strawman that men and women are exactly equal or that reverse discrimination is the only answer.

I believe it's important to discuss the issue, though, mostly for everyone else who is reading but not commenting. I can say at least for me, this thread has made me think about more facets of this issue than I would otherwise, and it has shown me more clearly what it looks like from a different perspective.

But we go right back to where we were before. I am, and most people are, well aware of this fact. Altering that is a matter of time and education. Repeating it over and over to the people not doing it doesn't help anything.

hahaha it's funny because you think they should sit at the back of the bus and shut up until the people with privilege deign to let them sit up front

wait, that's not funny at all, it's just fucking reprehensible.

The tone of your posts in this thread shows that you are simply looking for enemies. You immediately call anyone that disagrees with you in the slightest a bigot, racist, or sexist. If you ever want to actually make progress, you need to leave your zeal at the door and engage those who disagree as adults. We're willing to listen, but not to someone who assumes we're the enemy. Even a cursory glance at Vampyre's posts in this thread reveals that his positions are much more moderate than you think they are. In fact, if we set aside the dogma, I bet everyone in this thread agrees on the major issue - that sexism is a problem in gaming. What we disagree on is the severity of that problem and the solutions which should be used.

stawman wrote:

Part of the privleged class? It doesn't matter that you're not offended. It doesn't matter that you don't see anything wrong. Opinions and arguments founded on your privilege are noise.

If valid arguments are raised, it shouldn't matter the gender or color of the person's skin who raised them. So far, I and a few others have raised valid concerns about the underlying assumptions being parroted here. While a few posters have seriously considered these points and responded in kind with valid arguments and evidence (a study about sexist hiring practices in the sciences, for example), others like yourself have simply dismissed our concerns with talk of privilege. Yes, privilege may color our posts, but that fact alone doesn't make our arguments invalid. You need to make your case based on evidence and reason, all the more so if your proposed solutions are especially disruptive, rather than making dogmatic claims and then dismissing any counter-arguments with a snarky "check your privilege" statement.

Part of the privleged class? It doesn't matter that you're not offended. It doesn't matter that you don't see anything wrong. Opinions and arguments founded on your privilege are noise.

If valid arguments are raised, it shouldn't matter the gender or color of the person's skin who raised them. So far, I and a few others have raised valid concerns about the underlying assumptions being parroted here. While a few posters have seriously considered these points and responded in kind with valid arguments and evidence (a study about sexist hiring practices in the sciences, for example), others like yourself have simply dismissed our concerns with talk of privilege. Yes, privilege may color our posts, but that fact alone doesn't make our arguments invalid. You need to make your case based on evidence and reason, all the more so if your proposed solutions are especially disruptive, rather than making dogmatic claims and then dismissing any counter-arguments with a snarky "check your privilege" statement.

Sadly, you don't seem to be picking up what I'm putting down. I realise that my position may appear, at first glance, to say that unless you drink the Kool-aid you can't understand. The root of the problem is so systemic that it, almost invisibly, shapes perceptions and acknowledgement of the problem. It runs so counter to the idea that everybody -- especially the intelligent and "open minded" -- are entitled to their opinion that it is not given proper consideration.

I am, frankly, not certain which "valid arguements" or concerns you feel I'm dismissing without reams of evidence. The portion of the post you quoted was a targetted dismissal: it's not about you. If your "valid arguments" stem your experience in the system as a privileged class, chances are they simply bolster my position. However, until you seriously consider and internalize the effects of privilege (yours, and others), I don't really expect you to see that. I'm sorry if my statements have been interpreted as "check your privilege" snark. I'm hoping to get some people -- and not necessarily those to whom I am responding -- to recognize privilege for what it is. And I'm treating that dismissal as a bludgeon when repeat-posters continue to make the same failed arguments from the same irrelevant point of view.

As snarkily as this will be viewed, it's more plaintive than not: until you actually examine privilege, you're not equipped with the tools to discuss it at the table with the big boys and girls. You (the general you) are not wrong, or bad, because in certain circumstances you're privileged. It's not something you've earned or acquired, it's a result of circumstances. To be identified privileged is not an attack, it's an acknowlegement of factors which underly perspectives and arguements. It's simply my hope that more people, today than yesterday, will have increased their understanding of privilege. I'll try, later on, to post links on the topic.

I don't know if I have anything more to add to the conversation. I feel like the automated systems I discussed are a great way to push the respect level forward in the game setting. I think a lot of the points Squid makes above would push it forward in the developer setting, although that area feels a lot more foreign to me. I personally don't keep up with meta-level gaming news like that very often, so I'm not really aware of that scene. If there aren't many females involved, and people feel they should be represented, more power to them. As others have stated, I'm not sure how I can help beyond that. To some level I'm casual. I show everyone proper respect in game, and barely scratch the surface of gaming outside of Ars or the games themselves. So in that respect there probably isn't a whole lot more I CAN do.

My girlfriend isn't a gamer (unfortunately), so I don't have a huge emotional investment in it beyond the ground-floor level of the game server environment. At that level I feel like I'm already doing pretty much all I can.

1. Game players acknowledge female gamers exist in enough numbers to be considered members of the fractured community and are not oddities

What percentage of say COD players are female? Would that percentage in any other group be an oddity? Like how people who survive pancreatic cancer are oddities. The game decides the M/F ratio.

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2. Game players acknowledge female gamers have an equal voice (you don't need to agree with what we say, just that we have a right to say it)

equal player per player or if only one woman plays a game she is equal in voice to all the men combined who play it? I think this has to be figured out first.

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3. Game players be able to discuss a topic about female gamers without dismissing their opinions or points of view without cause

Can those opinions be dismissed with cause? Are female gamers allowed to outright dismiss the opinions of other females they do not consider gamers, because they play bejeweled and have never main tanked for a 40 man raid?

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4. Hold gaming companies accountable for lack of female representation, how women are portrayed in their games, and marketing practices

What is the actual idea behind this? If I'm marketing "Max Pectoral's: Face Beating Hurt Patrol Extreeme!" You better believe the guys are going to be incredibly beefy and the women will be eye candy except for 1-2 Vasquez characters (who will not be unattractive). A MMO will get marketing towards males and females. A social stand alone will be more marketed towards women. I will always market towards where the money is (otherwise my share holders will fire me).

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5. Any male game players who say anything positive about female gamers should not be immediately dismissed as a "white knight"

And actual White Knights will still get the ridicule they deserve. "Dude she is a he and he is not going to fuck you, you are getting trolled."

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6. Acknowledge that not all female gaming conversations represent the entire community of female gamers. Just like not all male gamers are sexist assholes, not all female gamers represent the group in the most positive light

This is a problem with the community itself and not gender. Lets face it Madden players are not real gamers and are usually stupid as shit. MMA players? Those sad losers? You'd think they can find a better homosexuality simulator to pleasure their closeted selves!

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7. Female gamers need to make their voice heard in positive ways, not just complaining.

I usually do not hear the female gamers themselves complain too much.. Unless the flag runner sucks in which case they complain just like everyone else. Usually the complaints come from females who do not really game (OMG Laura's tits are way out of proportion she is clearly just a slave to the male rapist misogynistic ideals! She should be chubby, flat chested and fight for social causes with a math book!).

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8. Are you a female in gaming? Use the mic. Play. Kick ass. Be yourself.

Listen to the vent first though. If they all sound like 12 year old Klan members who have an extra chromosome, find a better class of people to play with, just like a guy would. We Arsians like to play together because the gaming world is 99% fucktards.

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For the Gaming Companies

1. Do better research into who is playing their games and why they play them

This is incredibly well done. Unfortunatly evolutionary psychology leads to games that people stereotype as oriented towards one gender or another (because they are). I make a game for guys it will be about killing, conquering, hot potential mates and cool loot. If I make one aimed towards women it will be social, and involve solving problems, getting loot and better story lines. This is the same as if I was making games for people a million years ago. We never made it far from the trees.

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2. Include women in some of their marketing as players and not as sex symbols

3. Take a hard look into hiring practices to ensure there is no gender bias

equal ratio of employees or equal percentage to expected consumer crowd? Equal by proportion of qualified candidates? What happens when you can't find a female Carmack because there are none?

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4. Take a hard took into how women are treated in the workplace

Are they all comfortable with the Nerf battles? Should we kill that crunch week stress relief to make them feel more at home?

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5. Proactively encourage women to join their companies at all levels by establishing a women friendly environment and publicizing it

Simply hire the best. It will be great when we can make blind hiring work well.

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6. Take a hard look on how women are represented in their games and adjust as needed

Can we get women to agree on how they are badly misrepresented in their games?

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7. Have women speakers at gaming events that talk about real relevant topics

Find enough of them. If you can't you will just end up with greedy people who know nothing about it coming in for the cash.

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8. Are you a female that works in the gaming industry? Be loud. Be pushy. It sucks for you but you are in a position to make a difference. I want to know who you are.

Increase the bottom line and make money for the company and find management hearing even your quietest whispers.

For Society

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1. Get more girls into STEM

Get more men into professional dancing! Oh wait we have an interest problem.. And that is the wall STEM is hitting. Force them? "I'm sorry Julie you will not be a veterinarian when you grow up, you will be working at CERN". I'm learning fashion design from my wife but I do not think you will be able to get most men to follow that path. And knitting.. I hate that and have since I was a child!

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2. Acknowledge that a lot of female empowerment is extremely new and will take time to totally change our perceptions as a culture

Even between women this is already a knife fight. Men are fools to get involved with it, until it shakes out a bit.

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3. Acknowledge that language matters. A little thought into how you communicate goes a long way.

"Cock Juggling Spawn Fuck!" if far to subtle when they are camping the spawn.

4. Acknowledge that different cultures have different views of gender roles and may change at different paces and in different ways

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I think this is a door that swings both ways.

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Did I forget anything? Disagree? Is it totally insane to think that just making this list can make a tiny bit of difference?

insane? Probably. or naive. The problem is that posting it Ars you are already sitting in a group of people who think about these things. There are other scarier/stupider boards you could go to and try it.

Women should try to get more women into gaming... Oh wait they do but only the games they are interested in. "Max Pectoral's: Face Beating Hurt Patrol Extreeme!" is just out of luck there.

But we go right back to where we were before. I am, and most people are, well aware of this fact. Altering that is a matter of time and education. Repeating it over and over to the people not doing it doesn't help anything.

hahaha it's funny because you think they should sit at the back of the bus and shut up until the people with privilege deign to let them sit up front

wait, that's not funny at all, it's just fucking reprehensible.

All of the talk of privilege in this thread has been trying to try and discredit someone based on their race/gender- exactly what you're railing against. I would hope that people here at Ars are rational enough to take arguments based on their merit, not based on the race or gender of the speaker, especially in a thread about sexism. You, strawman and Xaiax have been proving me mistaken in that hope by continually attacking people not based on the arguments that they have, but rather that you feel they have "privilege".

The existence or lack of it of societal forces that give people advantages based on race or sex are irrelevant for rational arguments. However, rather than attacking or debunking Vampyres or chronomitches arguments, you're claiming they're wrong based on the "privilege" of the speaker. That's fallacious, and you guys should be better than that.

I think that it is also important that brothers and fathers play "Max Pectoral's: Face Beating Hurt Patrol Extreeme!" with their daughters and sisters if they want women playing those games in the future.

The existence or lack of it of societal forces that give people advantages based on race or sex are irrelevant for rational arguments. However, rather than attacking or debunking Vampyres or chronomitches arguments, you're claiming they're wrong based on the "privilege" of the speaker. That's fallacious, and you guys should be better than that.

Far from it- the choice of acknowledging or not acknowledging the existence of privilege frames the premise of the entire conversation. You can't get into an actual discussion if one party doesn't see the pervasiveness of the problem. Some of what's been posted are very direct attempts to try to get people to see how their way of thinking and using language are a manifestation of the problem. There are explanations and examples that, if you bring yourself to read them in their entirety without feeling personally insulted, have real substance to them. But when you don't acknowledge that, it makes the other side feel dismissed.

All of the talk of privilege in this thread has been trying to try and discredit someone based on their race/gender- exactly what you're railing against. I would hope that people here at Ars are rational enough to take arguments based on their merit, not based on the race or gender of the speaker, especially in a thread about sexism. You, strawman and Xaiax have been proving me mistaken in that hope by continually attacking people not based on the arguments that they have, but rather that you feel they have "privilege".

Well, gee, Sunshine, maybe it's because they're steadfastly denying the existence of something well accepted and noted by people who have committed the sin of not being like them?

I am a straight, cisgendered, reasonably able white male. I recognize the overwhelming advantages I have been given by way of my place in the genetic lottery. I understand that I am not capable of directly experiencing the social effects of being born not those things. And so I do not dismiss out of hand the experiences of people who are. I am still privileged, and it certainly still colors my worldview because I am by no means perfect, but I recognize this and do not dismiss the concerns of others just because they're others.

You seem to think I'm attacking them because they're white men. I'm not. I'm jumping on them because they're contemptible. I am incapable of sympathy or respect for people, like your homeslices here, who lord their privilege over other people, who think that the straight white male is capable of rendering judgements from On High. Because they can't get out of their own headspace. Because they're selfish. They have altogether too much growing up to do, regardless of their age, and nobody's going to be able to force it on them. They can't be educated until they want to be educated and they don't want to be educated so fuck 'em. Treat them as they instinctively treat the next person.

Privileged people who deny that they're privileged don't have a worldview conducive to seeing this stuff and no amount of discussion will change that because they have no inherent reason to change. Privileged people who insist that the problem doesn't need to be dealt with--and when you get down to brass tacks, that's what's being said here--are shitheads.

I understand that I am not capable of directly experiencing the social effects of being born not straight, white, and male.

Bah, plenty of white guys get fag bashed in jHS/HS just for being different.

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Privileged people who deny that they're privileged don't have a worldview conducive to seeing this stuff and no amount of discussion will change that because they have no inherent reason to change. Privileged people who insist that the problem doesn't need to be dealt with--and when you get down to brass tacks, that's what's being said here--are shitheads.

You couldn't understand it man! You weren't there!

There are cases where privilege is the problem and there are other times when "Well you are just privileged!" is just the best argument some people can come up when losing an argument, and yet other times it is just a knee jerk reaction. Mitt Romney's "white male Privilege" is very different that "trailer park" Jethro's "white male privilege". Most people cannot see/accept things that are outside their world view.

When your childhood stories match up with comedian's poorest of the poor comedy routines. When cops have shot at you for fun and tortured you because they could. When people hated you for being different. When you have had to fight for your life because you were different. When you have failed to get promotions/jobs due to your race or appearance. When you have gone through stuff that is bad enough that most people are sure you are making it up. At that point hearing about how privileged your life has been, is laughable. On the other hand if you are Thad Montgomery III from the Hamptons it is more likely that you are privileged than it is if you are just Jimmy Nelson from the south side. On the other hand it is possible that Thad has seen some shit.

So I think I prefer the "Well, has X ever happened to you?" to establish where someone is coming from, rather than just whipping out the "privileged" stamp to just effortlessly discredit everything they say. It takes a little bit more effort but you both know each other better in the end.

They have altogether too much growing up to do, regardless of their age, and nobody's going to be able to force it on them. They can't be educated until they want to be educated and they don't want to be educated so fuck 'em. Treat them as they instinctively treat the next person.

Privileged people who deny that they're privileged don't have a worldview conducive to seeing this stuff and no amount of discussion will change that because they have no inherent reason to change. Privileged people who insist that the problem doesn't need to be dealt with--and when you get down to brass tacks, that's what's being said here--are shitheads.

Emphasis mine up there. It doesn't hurt to point out what you're getting at in the privilege argument, but at some point is it better to continue clogging up the thread with that, or to simply ignore them? Wouldn't that be a better way to "treat them as they instinctively treat the next person"? Since they don't seem to care what all the fuss is about, after all.

I'm going to respond to concepts rather than individual posters which I hope won't be seen as dismissive. It's just hard to do the whole quoting thing with so many different posts.

To expand further on why I picked on Sony

I believe Sony is being called out on this due to the shear length of the presentation and the amount of presenters they had. If you only have 2 - 3 presenters the lack of female representation isn't as noticeable and glaring. When you have a lot more than that it becomes more noticeable. I didn't count but there were like 10 + people presenting. There were no women involved at all at any of those game companies or at Sony? They don't even need to be all that technical. It was mostly corporate suits anyway. There are plenty of women in marketing and PR and none of them were tapped for speaking?

I don't know why there wasn't and there are probably few who truly do. Personally regardless of the reason why I found it sad. I also found it sad that with all the adjectives used to describe the device "fun" wasn't mentioned. They also never showed the damn thing or talked about pricing. All sad to me.

Regarding privilege

Being a white male is going to affect your perception the same way being a white female is going to affect me. I was watching the Sony event with coworkers. When I noted the lack of women my coworker noted the lack of hispanics. I hadn't noticed that, he had.

However, being privileged doesn't mean you are unable to be sensitive to the needs and views of others. Perhaps I am being naive again in thinking that having an open and respectful discussion might aid in that sensitivity just the same as the open and slightly alcohol tinged conversations I've had with friends of color helped me understand race a little better. I can never see the world the way they do but things they have told me opened my eyes a bit.

Women in the Workplace

From the responses in this thread it seems that Affirmative Action is one of the greatest concerns when the subject of the lack of women in the STEM workforce comes up. It sounds like the backlash from that action would be more detrimental then it would be worth. Being a women in tech is hard enough without people treating you badly because you haven't earned your slot.

When I say a female friendly workplace I mean more than just people not being sexist assholes. Women are different and care about different things. Supporting family such as flexible work hours seems to be a key factor. These polices would help men as well. I'm sure there are a lot of fathers who would like to have both a career as well as spend time with family.

Leveling the playing field actually helps everyone. I remember reading about the unintended side affects the Americans with Disabilities act. Ever try to roll something down a sidewalk like a suitcase? Wasn't the ramp useful for you? Having that bigger bathroom stall is pretty awesome at times too and really everyone gets to use it. Greater mobility for the disabled meant greater mobility and access for everyone.

What I do think is a solution is token women as role models. Yes, stick a women in a presentation just because she is a women. Please note I am referring to women who are already there. Of which there are a few. Use them. Find a talented woman and back her up and make her a name. Use what's there and more will follow. Will it be 50%? Probably not but that's ok as long as talent is recognized and rewarded. There might even be more interest in the field if the trail has already be blazed. I certainly would not be where I am if the women before me hadn't fought for my right to be in this chair if I wanted it.

Types of games

I'm going to admit a ton of bias here. When I talk about women in gaming I am not talking about things like this. Which I think is terrible but really might not be.

It's the fact that I play FPS games for 10+ hours a week which leads me to label myself as more of a gamer then my interest in playing tower defense games on my iPhone in the subway. Which is probably unfair. Part of my concern over the statistics of women in gaming is how casual games are included. Although to be honest I have not researched this beyond some light googling.

Games are like toys in that I have issue with the continuing trend to label "girl games" and "boy games".

And what I find really fucking adorable is the idea that "well, I, the Lordly Straight White Male, don't (see it|think it's a problem|think we should bother)!" is an argument.

Just so's we're clear.

Even if that ["there isn't a problem"] was Vampyre's (or someone else's) position, the response isn't "What you say doesn't matter because you're privileged to be a white male", it's to point out why they're wrong. The fact that they're privileged isn't relevant to the validity of their point- if Vampyre and chronomitch were oppressed jewish latina girls, would their arguments be more or less valid? I don't necessarily agree with everything they've posited, but they have made relevant points, and generally posted with reasoned arguments instead of personal attacks.

Crackhead Johny wrote:

Hork wrote:

I have yet to see any examples of how involving more women and girls would change things in the industry.

Sims and Zynga would be examples.

Do the development teams of EA Maxis and Zynga have more females than other places in the industry? I haven't heard anything to that effect, but I'm not overly familiar with either company. There is a fairly noticeable divide for gender on what genres they enjoy, which I'd expect plays a larger part. Social and simulation games tend to be more popular among women than other genres like FPSes or fighting games. I'd expect a sim game made by a 100% male development team to attract more female gamers than an FPS made by a 100% female development team. That's not to say that either game wouldn't be better if made by a mixed team that has a wider variety of viewpoints and experience, but the presence or lack of women on the development team isn't necessarily correlated with the popularity of the game among female gamers.

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The_Mighty_Squid wrote:

What I do think is a solution is token women as role models. Yes, stick a women in a presentation just because she is a women. Please note I am referring to women who are already there. Of which there are a few. Use them. Find a talented woman and back her up and make her a name. Use what's there and more will follow. Will it be 50%? Probably not but that's ok as long as talent is recognized and rewarded. There might even be more interest in the field if the trail has already be blazed. I certainly would not be where I am if the women before me hadn't fought for my right to be in this chair if I wanted it.

I agree with this and think it would be a good step in the right direction. There are awesome women who work in the industry, and giving them more visibility can help girls who may be interested in game development encouragement and positive role models to look towards. So long as it's not "Hire a token women for presentations so our company looks less sexist"- we don't need token females that are just there to be in the public eye, we need more visibility of the female developers who are passionate about what they do and the games that they make.

When I say a female friendly workplace I mean more than just people not being sexist assholes. Women are different and care about different things. Supporting family such as flexible work hours seems to be a key factor. These polices would help men as well. I'm sure there are a lot of fathers who would like to have both a career as well as spend time with family.

I worry about this approach because it is saying "Yes, women are special and are higher maintenance because they're supposed to be housewives too" which is an assumption any child-free woman would balk at. I think it's bad to assume that every woman in the workforce is, or is going to be, a mother. And it's also bad to assume that because a woman is a mother it automatically means she becomes primary homemaker as well. Those assumptions lead to the conclusion that women are less desirable hires because they come with extra baggage.

I have yet to see any examples of how involving more women and girls would change things in the industry.

Sims and Zynga would be examples.

Do the development teams of EA Maxis and Zynga have more females than other places in the industry?

Both showed that if you make something that 52% of the population wants you make huge money. Sims is one of the biggest games ever. Zynga was the biggest game company in the world for a while. Women = money. They were ignored before Sims. When you are the big source of money business caters to you. The problem is that companies have a hard time replicating this due to lack of female game designers (there are almost 0 out there. You could not hire one if you wanted to). The companies also have a mind set problem. "we think this needs more explosions!" is not going to have the women beating a path to your door. Of course the successful people are realizing that if women want a different type of game.. then make one for them! Make 20 for them!

When I say a female friendly workplace I mean more than just people not being sexist assholes. Women are different and care about different things. Supporting family such as flexible work hours seems to be a key factor. These polices would help men as well. I'm sure there are a lot of fathers who would like to have both a career as well as spend time with family.

I worry about this approach because it is saying "Yes, women are special and are higher maintenance because they're supposed to be housewives too" which is an assumption any child-free woman would balk at. I think it's bad to assume that every woman in the workforce is, or is going to be, a mother. And it's also bad to assume that because a woman is a mother it automatically means she becomes primary homemaker as well. Those assumptions lead to the conclusion that women are less desirable hires because they come with extra baggage.

As a women with no children I don't like it either but that's what studies show. I was watching Makers last night and some of the backlash of the feminist movement comes the idea that you can have it all. You can be a perfect mother, a perfect wife and have a career. It doesn't really work out that way a lot of the time.

I have yet to see any examples of how involving more women and girls would change things in the industry.

Sims and Zynga would be examples.

Do the development teams of EA Maxis and Zynga have more females than other places in the industry?

Both showed that if you make something that 52% of the population wants you make huge money. Sims is one of the biggest games ever. Zynga was the biggest game company in the world for a while. Women = money. They were ignored before Sims. When you are the big source of money business caters to you. The problem is that companies have a hard time replicating this due to lack of female game designers (there are almost 0 out there. You could not hire one if you wanted to). The companies also have a mind set problem. "we think this needs more explosions!" is not going to have the women beating a path to your door. Of course the successful people are realizing that if women want a different type of game.. then make one for them! Make 20 for them!

I agree- I had assumed your initial post for these was implying that Sims and Farmville were made by women, which I'm dubious about. However, those games have indeed shown that games that appeal to women can have broad commercial success. I'd love to see a lot more iteration and attention in different types of games than we see now with so much of the game development money being spent on FPSes and action games. I think that there's a lot of room in the market for high-budget and high-quality games that appeal more to women, if only producers would fund them.

Regarding flexibility in the workplace, Americans have become *crazy* with their (our) expectations of work hours and lack of sick days, and it hurts everyone, whether they have a family or not. If having more women in the workplace helps assuage this situation, I say it's all for the better.

I also take umbrage at the crack about Nerf fights in the office. That is NOT the kind of "woman friendly" environment that's being discussed. I love Nerf fights. I don't so much love being followed to my car when I leave for lunch by someone I explicitly said "no" to when they asked me out for lunch, having my ass grabbed, being talked down to, or being expected to make the coffee (unless I drank the last cup, in which case I totally will).

Or, you know, you could use the common meaning, directly from wikipedia:

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Affirmative action, known as positive discrimination in the United Kingdom, refers to policies that take factors including "race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin" into consideration in order to benefit an underrepresented group "in areas of employment, education, and business".

Nice try, though. Or not.

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Also "reverse discrimination" means that there's "normal discrimination". What's normal about it? Why is that the right direction?

It simply means that two wrongs don't make a right, but I know you're deliberately misinterpreting what I said to score some cheap points.

All of the talk of privilege in this thread has been trying to try and discredit someone based on their race/gender- exactly what you're railing against.

Right. As a white male, I brought up white male privilege because I wanted to discredit myself!

Attempting to highlight an apparent lack of perspective on the part of a poster, which is coloring their entire set of posts, is not an ad-hom, and it is not discrimination. This isn't some purely analytical argument about math where you can point out some logic flaw and change somebody's opinion. This conversation is about emotion, and people's emotions about a topic are heavily colored by their privilege - that is, a huge set of past experiences directly and peripherally related to the topic.

Pretending that everything can be addressed in emotionless terms is one of the bigger failings that we as nerds (in particular), often fall into.

A person lacking the emotional context to understand somebody else's point of view will make arguments that appear to them to be completely rational, but which completely miss the mark. You can attempt to dismantle and critique each separate argument on its merits (and there's been a decent amount of that in the thread, too), or you can go to the root of the problem, which in this case is privilege.

The good news is you don't have to be a woman to understand. You just need to be capable of empathy, and to have some experience in your life where you've been on the other side of privilege. It obviously won't be on the other side of gender privilege, but there's got to be somewhere in your life that you've been on the other side of it. If you can remember how that made you feel, and realize how much more pervasive it is in this situation (male privilege is nearly universal), maybe you can start to understand.

I know where the arguments against are coming from. Until I experienced the other side of it appeals to "privilege" seemed like bullshit to me too. I recall being of the opinion that "a woman is just like a man with tits, what's the big fucking deal?" The big fucking deal is being treated differently (sometimes subtly, sometimes very overtly) by virtually everybody you encounter, for your entire life.

All of the talk of privilege in this thread has been trying to try and discredit someone based on their race/gender- exactly what you're railing against.

Right. As a white male, I brought up white male privilege because I wanted to discredit myself!

Attempting to highlight an apparent lack of perspective on the part of a poster, which is coloring their entire set of posts, is not an ad-hom, and it is not discrimination. This isn't some purely analytical argument about math where you can point out some logic flaw and change somebody's opinion. This conversation is about emotion, and people's emotions about a topic are heavily colored by their privilege - that is, a huge set of past experiences directly and peripherally related to the topic.

Pretending that everything can be addressed in emotionless terms is one of the bigger failings that we as nerds (in particular), often fall into.

A person lacking the emotional context to understand somebody else's point of view will make arguments that appear to them to be completely rational, but which completely miss the mark. You can attempt to dismantle and critique each separate argument on its merits (and there's been a decent amount of that in the thread, too), or you can go to the root of the problem, which in this case is privilege.

The good news is you don't have to be a woman to understand. You just need to be capable of empathy, and to have some experience in your life where you've been on the other side of privilege. It obviously won't be on the other side of gender privilege, but there's got to be somewhere in your life that you've been on the other side of it. If you can remember how that made you feel, and realize how much more pervasive it is in this situation (male privilege is nearly universal), maybe you can start to understand.

I know where the arguments against are coming from. Until I experienced the other side of it appeals to "privilege" seemed like bullshit to me too. I recall being of the opinion that "a woman is just like a man with tits, what's the big fucking deal?" The big fucking deal is being treated differently (sometimes subtly, sometimes very overtly) by virtually everybody you encounter, for your entire life.

I agree that privilege exists- there's tons of shit that women have to put up with on a daily basis that men don't have to. In most overt respects, barriers against major things like college admissions or job hiring have been removed, but as is shown by the studies linked earlier, there's still some discrimination that takes place even so. However, women have to deal with unwanted sexual advances, harassment, and even just regular intimidation by men who are larger, stronger, and who often can be threatening even when they don't intend to be. There's also lingering stereotypes, religion-based gender roles, and myriads of other things that often aren't obvious, but are big deals to the women who have to deal with them.

However, many of the "privilege" posts weren't saying "you're mistaken on this point because you lack perspective- try looking at it as though you were a woman", but rather "you're a privileged white male, so you're wrong and a bad person." Things like strawman's argument:

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Part of the privleged class? It doesn't matter that you're not offended. It doesn't matter that you don't see anything wrong. Opinions and arguments founded on your privilege are noise.

These types of arguments are just trying to discredit everything someone says based on their race and gender- it doesn't respond to any arguments that have been made, but generalizes that they're made from "privilege", and are therefore invalid.

I also thought that this thread was about sexism in the gaming industry and games in general, not about emotions- at least that was the tone of the OP, and the main overtones of the conversation in general. That's something that can be discussed rationally without appeals to emotion and circular arguments where one side doesn't deign to actually discuss points, but instead just says that the other side is wrong because they're privileged white males who are unable to have perspective or anything worthwhile to say. Some people on that side of the debate have made good arguments- you've made some good posts that contribute to the discussion. However, there have been a decent number of posts that haven't done anything but attack other posters based on their privilege, which is what I have issues with.

I also strongly feel that framing the debate as something that white males can't understand due to privilege is bad. The way to break down barriers and create more opportunities for women is not to attack men or try to cut people out of the conversation. That just leads to divisiveness, when what we need is for the division to go away. It shouldn't matter what gender an applicant to a job is, or what gender the people you're playing games with are. People should be hired based on merit, not gender, and sexist behavior in a game is unacceptable regardless of whether the people you're playing with are male or female. When discrimination does take place, it needs to be called out, but making blanket attacks against half of the population is more likely to make a lot of those people dig in their heels than it is to help change the status quo in a good way.

All of the talk of privilege in this thread has been trying to try and discredit someone based on their race/gender- exactly what you're railing against.

Right. As a white male, I brought up white male privilege because I wanted to discredit myself!

No, just dissenting opinions. Or at least, that's how it appears. I'm only speaking from privilege because I didn't agree with everything you said.

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Attempting to highlight an apparent lack of perspective on the part of a poster, which is coloring their entire set of posts, is not an ad-hom, and it is not discrimination. This isn't some purely analytical argument about math where you can point out some logic flaw and change somebody's opinion. This conversation is about emotion, and people's emotions about a topic are heavily colored by their privilege - that is, a huge set of past experiences directly and peripherally related to the topic.

It is. Who I am has no bearing on what I'm saying, unless you're trying to evaluate the truth of what I'm saying based on something like how likely I am to lie about it. In the same way that you being a 'white male' doesn't make your opinion about privilege wrong, it doesn't make mine wrong either. That doesn't mean I'm not wrong, but it does mean you can't just saying 'white male privilege' and ignore me.

Or you can, but then you're like Blacken.

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Pretending that everything can be addressed in emotionless terms is one of the bigger failings that we as nerds (in particular), often fall into.

You can't argue logic with emotions. You can make assumptions based on emotions and go from there. I agree, reality often doesn't follow the logical/rational path, but once we stray into making arguments based solely on how someone feels rather than rationality, we may as well roll dice and choose what to do based on that.

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A person lacking the emotional context to understand somebody else's point of view will make arguments that appear to them to be completely rational, but which completely miss the mark. You can attempt to dismantle and critique each separate argument on its merits (and there's been a decent amount of that in the thread, too), or you can go to the root of the problem, which in this case is privilege.

No, you can address the argument or you can ignore it with a label and a logical fallacy. You're not actually addressing anything by labeling something 'privilege' and ignoring it.

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The good news is you don't have to be a woman to understand. You just need to be capable of empathy, and to have some experience in your life where you've been on the other side of privilege. It obviously won't be on the other side of gender privilege, but there's got to be somewhere in your life that you've been on the other side of it. If you can remember how that made you feel, and realize how much more pervasive it is in this situation (male privilege is nearly universal), maybe you can start to understand.

Particularly pleased about the implication that anyone not agreeing with you lacks empathy, and the assumption they've never been on the other side of privilege.

Let's make this clear: you generally don't know enough about the people you're discussing with here to know if they lack empathy or have ever been the 'victim' of privilege. For all you know, I'm a woman from Nigeria and I do this sort of stuff for shits and giggles between sending letters asking you to spirit away my dead husband's inheritance for a share, if only you'll transmit your banking information. You assume, sometimes based on things I've said, and sometimes based on what you want to think about me based on what I'm saying, or sometimes what is best for your argument.

Assuming I'm the straight white male I claim to be, I could still have been the 'victim' of privilege. There's class to consider, wealth, geography, disability... you still don't know enough about me to say I haven't been. On top of that, I'm pretty sure I've displayed empathy. Agreement != empathy. If I didn't give a shit about how someone else felt who was different from me, I wouldn't bother to take the time to address it. I wouldn't go ahead and look at the links and posts people like Xaiax have made. I wouldn't bother to address you.

I gain nothing by talking with you about this if I don't care about you. Your opinion isn't integral to me gaining anything, you have no influence on me or what happens to me. I address The Mighty Squid because I do have empathy for how she feels. I just don't necessarily agree about what it represents or the course of action to take (after seeing her further explanation, I am much more inclined to understand why she would feel that way).

If you continue to try to 'label' me away, I'll put you on ignore, and then I won't be empathetic to you or any argument you make anymore. If all you're going to do is address me with 'privilege' either stop and don't address me at all, or don't expect future correspondence.

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I know where the arguments against are coming from. Until I experienced the other side of it appeals to "privilege" seemed like bullshit to me too. I recall being of the opinion that "a woman is just like a man with tits, what's the big fucking deal?" The big fucking deal is being treated differently (sometimes subtly, sometimes very overtly) by virtually everybody you encounter, for your entire life.

If you've ever grown up poor surrounded by middle class and rich kids, you know exactly what privilege looks and feels like in a very direct way. I do understand. I can even see where I fall into the same privilege you're talking about.

But I'm not making my argument from that place. You keep saying I am, without explanation other than to say I am, and that's why I keep taking it as an Ad Hominen. Address my arguments, not your assumptions about me as a person.

I don't get the feeling that your intention is a dismissal based on a label, but that's the result.

I'm going to admit a ton of bias here. When I talk about women in gaming I am not talking about things like this. Which I think is terrible but really might not be.

C'mon, you picked the most egregiously patronizing example you could find.

There are many very good games that appeal tremendously to women while not being "girly" games. Hundreds of thousands of women play World of Warcraft. Sims has been mentioned already. PopCap's games are popular with both sexes.

You can't just take players and developers of first-person shooters and draw demographic conclusions from such a narrow slice. Are there women working at Blizzard, Maxis, PopCap? In which positions? Etc.

Show me on the doll where even that arbitrary description requires "reverse discrimination".

I'm sorry I broke your argument by posting the actual text that made the term well known. (Did you know that Richard Nixon studied racism in the US and concluded that it wasn't a problem that individual action caused or could solve, and that the problems and thus the solution were systemic in nature? F'n NIXON.)

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It simply means that two wrongs don't make a right, but I know you're deliberately misinterpreting what I said to score some cheap points.

You're the one who invented the idea that "take deliberate action to make sure you're not acting in a biased manner" means "discriminate against white dudes".

Here's why comparing it to "two wrongs don't make a right" is wrong and bad. If you have an unbalanced situation, you can't balance it by adding to all sides. You have to add to some more than others.

The problem is that white people, especially white dudes, see the lessening of the gap as a direct attack on them, because their unearned advantage diminishes.

What did white landowners lose when any white man gained the ability to vote?What did white men lose when other men gained the ability to vote?White did men lose when women gained the ability to vote?

They lost power, but only because "their" power existed due to the oppression of others.

It is literally the exact same situation we see with gay marriage now. What do whiny straight assholes lose if people can marry someone of the same legally accepted gender? Fuck all! Except the power differential created by those people not being allowed to marry.

That's why people say "reverse discrimination". There's a tradition to the discrimination, and removing it is seen as an attack because it erases a power differential. It lessens power, and that's the problem. That's why people get upset.

If employers are less likely to hire women, it's that many more jobs available and that much easier for a man to get a job. Without that bias, the man has to compete more than he wanted to or expected to. This is why men get pissed off at women working with them, they were raised to feel entitled to that job, and it's no longer an entitlement, it's something they have to earn.

I have yet to see any examples of how involving more women and girls would change things in the industry.

Sims and Zynga would be examples.

I think this might be part of why this topic makes a lot of people (current gamers) uncomfortable. Many people out there don't want their games to change. I think there's a fear out there that having more women involved will change things they love in ways they don't want. I think they are worried that their favorite FPS or ARPG or whatever will become more "girlie", as is, more like what they think Sims and Zynga are all about. This is why I'm trying to understand what having more women involved MEANS for game development. I don't think it'll mean the Simsifying of games, I think it'll mean something new and interesting. I just don't know what that will be.